On Friday 27 February, Big Think partner PwC hosted its second global webcast focused on the question, ‘What would you do if you were not afraid?’ The webcast was part of ‘Aspire to Lead: The PwC Women’s...

Forget The Poster...Put Einstein's Audio File On Your Wall

If you're one of those people who likes to switch up their visualizations in iTunes or Windows Media Player, this might be of interest: Epic Frequency, a Tennessee-based company, has created a line of prints that represent audio waveforms of iconic speeches. The prints are 1.5 feet tall by 4 feet wide, and the speakers range from Albert Einstein to Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, both of whose 2012 nomination acceptance speeches are available for sale. The company will also create a print from an audio file of your choice "like your podcast, wedding vows, or favorite catchphrase."

What's the Big Idea?

Epic Frequency is the brainchild of two friends, Nathan Moore and Bill Seaver, who began doing a monthly podcast and noticing the beauty of the waveforms made by the recording software. With backgrounds in design and marketing, they figured others might enjoy graphical representations of historic audio, and began looking for and designing a collection of artwork based on recordings of famous people. Some of the more intriguing works are those in which the audio clip is short. Seaver says, "Neil Armstrong's 'One Small Step,' for instance, is really interesting...you can actually see where he spoke each word from that famous moment in time and the long gap between phrases."